My flight buddy is genuinely happy with being fat

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We’re on a flight to South Africa for some much-needed winter sunshine. Sitting next to me is one of the largest women I’ve ever seen. She smiles as we sit down, apologising for the fact that she’s taking up half my seat as well as her own. It’s uncomfortable at first, but we soon get talking. She’s a nurse by training, retired early and lives with her husband in Cape Town.

She almost never takes aircraft, she tells me, because it’s extremely difficult for her to get in and out of the seats.